Results

Graphing Rational Functions

A Rational Function is the ratio of two polynomial functions.
This lesson is to teach how to graph a rational function.

P(x)
f(x) = -----
Q(x)

where P(x) and Q(x) are Polynomial Functions.
We will use the following to demonstrate the graphing procedure.
P(x) = 2x2-10x+12
Q(x) = x2-5x+4
Therefore,

2x2-10x+12
f(x) = -----------
x2-5x+4

We could start off by creating a large table of x and f(x) values, but this would be a lot of work,
and some subtle features could be missed. Instead, we will analyze various characteristics of the function.
Procedure